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Sealers really do bring out the best in Terracotta tiles, however the catch is they will wear off over time and if you want to maintain that appearance you have to work out a regular maintenance plan. If you don’t maintain the sealer you will find that the sealer near the most heavily used areas such as doors etc. will wear away first and once that happens dirt will become ingrained in the tile and becomes difficult to clean resulting in a patchy appearance.

The remaining sealer on this Terracotta tiled kitchen floor at a house in the town of Wickford, Essex was no longer effective and had worn completely off in places. The solution was to strip off the old sealer, clean the Terracotta tile and gout and then re-seal with a fresh seal.

Stripping Sealers from Terracotta Tiles

I started by giving the floor a deep clean with Tile Doctor Pro Clean diluted 2 parts water to 1 part cleaner. This is quite a strong dilution designed to allow the removal of the sealer and was left to dwell on the floor for ten minutes before working it into the floor using a scrubbing machine fitted with a black pad. Surprisingly the sealer was proving difficult to shift in certain areas and I had to repeat the process a few times and made sure to give the grout a good scrubbing as well.

I managed to get rid of most of the sealer using this process and for the remaining stubborn areas I used a stronger product called Tile Doctor Remove and Go which is a very effective coatings remover that is safe to use on tiles. This did the trick and the floor was now free of sealers and the grout was looking much better too, the resultant slurry was removed using a wet vacuum and I then rinsed the floor several times with water before leaving it to dry for weekend.

Stripping Sealers from Terracotta Tiles

Tile Doctor Colour Grow which is an impregnating sealer that seeps into the pores of the tile to block them and prevent contaminates becoming ingrained in there and it also enhances the natural colours. Once this was dry I followed up with a number of coats of Tile Doctor Seal and Go which is topical sealer that will protect the surface and adds a nice sheen to the floor and is a popular choice for Terracotta and Quarry tiles.

I’m not sure my photographs do this post any justice however hopefully you can see that floor was quite transformed, the grout is much cleaner and the colours in the Terracotta have really come to life.

Maintaining Terracotta Tiles in Essex

Not too long ago, I was contacted by a client in the town of Wickford, which is a fairly small, quiet town in the south of Essex. My client had a Terracotta tiled floor that was in dire need of a complete refresh in the form of a thorough clean and seal.

You might not be aware of this but the word ‘Terracotta’ actually means ‘burned earth’, owing to the stone’s fantastic natural orange-auburn colours. A strong, durable material,it has been in use for residential uses for over two thousand years; the ancient Romans, for example, used Terracotta tiles to decorate their villas and palaces. However, as anyone who has ever owned with a Terracotta tiled floor will know, a major downside to the stone is that it has no natural glaze on the surface, and therefore can pick up ingrained dirt very quickly.

Cleaning a Terracotta tiled floor

I began the cleaning process by focusing on the grout lines. Firstly, I mixed a solution of one part Tile Doctor Pro-Clean to two parts clean water. Pro-Clean is a high alkaline cleaner that is suitable for use on most types of natural stone tile. I scrubbed the solution into the grout lines using a stiff grout brush in order to lift out the ingrained dirt and freshen up the grout.

To clean the tiles I applied Tile Doctor Remove & Go, which is a powerful coating remover product designed to break down and strip away any remaining old sealer on the surface. Nonetheless, most of the old sealer on this floor had clearly already worn away, allowing dirt and muck access to the tiles beneath. The product was applied to the tiles and agitated using a black scrubbing pad fitted to a rotary machine. As you can see from the photographs, the clean made a marked difference to the appearance of the floor, and also helped to remove some linseed oil which had been applied at some point in the past.

Once I was satisfied with the results of the clean, I left the house for a total of four days in order to allow enough time for the floor dry completely. This was important, as any excess moisture can inadvertently affect the performance of the sealer.

Sealing a Terracotta tiled floor

Upon my return, I finished off the job by sealing the floor with multiple coats of Tile Doctor Seal & Go. Seal & Go offers durable surface protection, which is especially important for porous stone like Terracotta that can, as I’ve mentioned, become very easily ingrained with dirt. Seal & Go also provided the aesthetically pleasing, low sheen finish that my client had requested.

TIP: If you have ever wondered how to tell if you floor is fully sealed, simply add a few drops of water to the surface; if the water forms a bubble on the surface as in the photograph below, then its sealed.